Best food delivery apps for India in Google Play

It wasn’t very long ago that if you wanted to get food delivered, you had to go through the whole ordeal of finding the paper menus, calling the restaurants and somehow getting the right order and delivery address across. But, thanks to an onslaught of food delivery apps over the last few years, the whole process of ordering food has become very convenient. You no longer have to deal with impatient and tired restaurant staff and everything can done right on your smartphone. While the food ordering apps aren’t available in every city and town right now, at the least majority of tier-one and tier-two cities have this convenience. In this article, I will be highlighting some of the best food-delivery apps that you can use to order food on your Android phone or tablet.

Swiggy

Let’s start with Swiggy, which I personally use almost on a daily basis. Swiggy allows you to order food from majority of restaurants around your location and depending on how far your place is from the restaurant, they get the food within 30-60 minutes. There is no minimum order, but depending on your city, you may be charged a delivery fee. Swiggy uses its own delivery executives, so you don’t have to worry about restaurant not having enough delivery boys during peak hours or other problems normally associated with restaurant’s own delivery process.

How does Swiggy work?

Basically, you open the Swiggy app and you get the list of restaurants with estimated delivery time. You select the eatery you want the food from, choose your order, checkout, pay online or cash on delivery and get the food. The app also shows the real-time status of your order, including the location of the delivery person.

The overall app experience is pretty seamless. You can download Swiggy from Google Play.

Zomato Order

After becoming the go-to place for restaurant information and ratings, Zomato entered the food delivery business two years ago. Unlike Swiggy, Zomato doesn’t own a fleet of delivery executives right now, but that might change very soon, given the company’s acquisition of Runnr two months ago. For the time being, Zomato (in most cases) acts as a middle-man between restaurants and the customers and the restaurants are responsible to get the food to you.

You select the restaurant that you want to order from. Select your order, checkout, pay online if the restaurant supports it or pay cash on delivery. Zomato will inform you when you order is shipped or delivered, but that doesn’t work most of the time, since the restaurants are responsible to mark these things in their system and they are often too busy or simply don’t care. However, as long as the customer get the order in the given time, it is not a problem.

Zomato also has a subscription service called Treats, which offers you a complementary dessert or beverage for free with your order from the partner restaurants. It costs INR 299 for a year, but it is often discounted.

Download Zomato Order from Google Play, the main Zomato app also includes online ordering feature.

Foodpanda

Similar to Zomato, Foodpanda doesn’t own its own delivery fleet and the partner restaurants deliver the food themselves. It is operational in more than 100 cities in India, which is the biggest positive for the service.

UberEats

A food delivery service from on-demand ride service Uber, UberEats has been recently launched in the Indian market and is currently available in only Delhi and Mumbai. It works like Swiggy and has its own delivery boys to get the food to you from the partner restaurants.

Innerchef

Unlike Zomato and Swiggy, Innerchef doesn’t bring you food from other restaurants, but offers food from its own kitchen like ready-to-eat meals as well as gourmets do-it-yourself recipe kits. It is available in Bangalore, Delhi-NCR, Hyderabad, and Mumbai.

How does Innerchef work?

It is simple, you select what you want to order from the listed menu, select the time of delivery and checkout. You can both pay online and cash of delivery. Minimum order delivery time is one hour.

FreshMenu

Similar to Innerchef, FreshMenu also provides food from its own kitchen. The app offers food items from Indian, Chinese, Italian, Mexican, Mediterranean cuisines and its menu is changed on a daily basis.

It is currently operational in Bengaluru, Mumbai, New Delhi and Gurgaon.

Faasos

Another food delivery app like Innerchef and FreshMenu, Faasos offers ready-to-eat meals, wraps, biryani, desserts and more. It has a quite extensive menu. Faasos app lets you track your order real time with a dynamic delivery estimated time, basis where you are.